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Liberal Studies Program

Liberal Studies

Liberal Studies,
Department of
Comparative Cultural Studies 
University of Houston
Old Science Building, Suite 230
3581 Cullen Boulevard
Houston, TX 77204-5020

Irfan Husain
Academic Advisor
ihusain@uh.edu
320 Agnes Arnold Hall
Phone: (713) 743-4001

Dr. Luca Oliva
Liberal Studies Program Director
Phone: (713) 743-3422
loliva@uh.edu 

Degree Requirements

The Major in Liberal Studies offers a broadly interdisciplinary liberal arts program that may be tailored to match a wide variety of students’ educational and professional goals.  Our majors can complete either a Bachelor of Arts (BA) or a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Liberal Studies.

In addition to fulfilling Core, College, and University requirements for their degrees, students majoring in Liberal Studies must satisfy the following:

  1. All requirements for a Minor in each of three different fields: at least two of the three Minors must be from programs offered within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), but one of the three Minors may be from another UH college.  Since the program is interdisciplinary in nature, students majoring in Liberal Studies will not have to fulfill the College requirement for an additional 9 hours across three fields outside of their Major.

  2. File degree plans for each of the three Minors, complete the 15 or 18 credit hours and all other requirements for each of the chosen Minors, including grade point averages, for a total of 45 to 54 credit hours.  Courses taken for one Minor cannot be used to satisfy requirements in either of the other two Minors.

  3. In addition to the completion of requirements for the student’s chosen three minors, the Liberal Studies major has 3 requirements.  The program has 2 required courses: the Introduction to Liberal Studies course (ILAS 2350) “Knowledge and Methods,” and the Senior Seminar course (ILAS 4350) “Interdisciplinary Problem-Solving.”  The third requirement is called “The Practicum.”

  4. The third program requirement (called “The Practicum”) can be fulfilled by selecting one of the following four options:  1) a third course “Power Writing” (ILAS 3350); OR  2)  an approved UH credit-bearing Study Abroad program; OR  3)  an approved UH credit-bearing Professional or Academic Internship or public service project; OR  4)  an Honors Thesis or other approved UH credit-bearing significant research capstone project.  Options 2-4 must be approved in advance by the Liberal Studies Program Coordinator. 

A list of UH Core Requirements by Component Area and the courses that qualify for them can be found here.

A List of Courses that satisfy the CLASS 3-hour Diversity requirement can be found under “1. CLASS Block and Diversity Requirement” here.